Driving A Bargain

“I told you, son, I didn’t do anything.”

“That girl—Tammy—she can’t rest, you know. She’s reaching out from beyond the grave, trying to stop that car every time it passes that spot. You’ve got to turn yourself in. You’ve got to let her rest.”

“Get out of here, kid. Leave me alone.”

“I can’t,” said Jerry. “I can’t, because it won’t leave her alone. You have to go to the police and tell them what you did.”

“How many times do I have to tell you? I didn’t do anything!” The old man turned around for a second, and Jerry thought he was going to disappear into the house. But he didn’t; he simply grabbed a hockey stick that must have been leaning against a wall just inside the door. He raised the stick menacingly. “Now, get out of here!” he shouted.

Jerry couldn’t believe the man was going to chase him down the street, in full view of his neighbors. “You have to turn yourself in,” he said firmly.

The man took a swing at him—high-sticking indeed!—and Jerry started running for his car. The old guy continued alter him. Jerry scrambled into the driver’s seat and slammed the door behind him. He threw the car into reverse, but not before the man brought the hockey stick down on the front of the hood—somewhere near, Jerry felt sure, the spot where the car had crashed into poor Tammy Jameson.

* * *

Jerry had no idea what was the right thing to do. He suspected that the bassett hound was correct: the police would laugh him out of the station if he came to them with his story. Of course, if they’d just try driving his car along Thurlbeck, they’d see for themselves. But adults were so smug; no matter how much he begged, they’d refuse.

And so Jerry found himself doing something that might have been stupid. He should have been at home studying—or, even better, out on a date with Ashley Brown. Instead, he was parked on the side of the street, a few doors up from the man’s house, from the driveway that used to be home to this car. He didn’t know exactly what he was doing. Did they call this casing the joint? No, that was when you were planning a robbery. Ah, he had it! A stakeout. Cool.

Jerry waited. It was dark enough to see a few stars—and he hoped that meant it was also dark enough that the old man wouldn’t see him, even if he glanced out his front window.

Jerry wasn’t even sure what he was waiting for. It was just like Ms. Singh, his chemistry teacher, said: he’d know it when he saw it.

And at last it appeared.

Jerry felt like slapping his hand against his forehead, but a theatrical gesture like that was wasted when there was no one around to see it. Still, he wondered how he could be so stupid.

That old man wasn’t the one who’d used the hockey stick. Oh, he might have dented Jerry’s hood with it, but the dents in the garage door were the work of someone else.

And chat someone else was walking up the driveway, hands shoved deep into the pockets of a blue leather jacket, dark-haired head downcast. He looked maybe a year or two older than Jerry.

Of course, it could have been a delivery person or something. But no, Jerry could see the guy take out a set of keys and let himself into the house. And, for one brief moment, he saw the guy’s face, a long face, a sad face … but a young face.

The car hadn’t belonged to the old man. It had belonged to his son.

* * *

There were fifteen hundred kids at Eastern High. No reason Jerry should know them all on sight—especially ones who weren’t in his grade. Oh, he knew the names of all the babes in grade twelve—he and the other boys his age fantasized about them often enough—but some long-faced guy with dark hair? Jerry wouldn’t have paid any attention to him.

Until now.

It was three days before he caught sight of the guy walking the halls at Eastern. His last name, Jerry knew, was likely Forsythe, since that was the old man’s name, the name Jerry had written on the check for the car. It wasn’t much longer before he had found where young Forsythe’s locker was located. And then Jerry cut his last class—history, which he could easily afford to miss once—and waited in a stairwell, where he could keep an eye on Forsythe’s locker.

At about 3:35, Forsythe came up to it, dialed the combo, put some books inside, took out a couple of others, and put on the same blue leather jacket Jerry had seen him in the night of the stakeout. And then he started walking out.

Jerry watched him head out, then he hurried to the parking lot and got into the Toyota.

* * *

Jerry was crawling along—and this time, it was of his own volition. He didn’t want to overtake Forsythe—not yet. But then Forsythe did something completely unexpected. Instead of walking down Thurlbeck, he headed in the opposite direction, away from his own house. Could it be that Jerry was wrong about who this was? After all, he’d seen Forsythe’s son only once before, on a dark night, and—